Serum
by SaiyanQueenVega
Summary: Chapter 1: The weak feeling never left him and he was constantly finding himself drifting away from conscious thought. But the most unnerving moment of the morning came when his translation chip suddenly stopped functioning. *DISCONTINUED*
1. Prolog: On the Border Line of the Edge

**Serum**

**Prolog:  
On the Border Line of the Edge, and Were I Walk Alone**

Chapter Rating: PG-13 (language)  
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot, which will be hazy in this prolog. Everything else belongs to the mighty Jhonen Vasquez.

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General Entry Log #: 1,322  
Manual Entry Log #: 4

_It's been nearly 2 weeks already..._

_The Dib used to taunt me, saying that he could always tell when I was hiding things from him. I hope that he over exaggerates his supposed skills because He CAN'T find out about this. But he has been strangely quiet lately. He's watching me... He always watches me. But there have been no breaches in security in these two weeks. None that I could detect at any rate... Has he seen the change? Does he know that there is no rush? That time is on HIS side now? Sometimes I think that perhaps I'm just becoming delusional, just like- Anyway, to the casual observer things probably just seem to have suddenly improved greatly between us. Of course the casual observer is generally some filthy human who doesn't really give half a rat's ass about either of us so long as we both stay quiet and in the shadows. I'll gladly stay in them if it means keeping what time I have remaining here peaceful.._

_Gir has taken to bringing me things home lately. This morning he appeared in the lab with Chinese food. I never really understood Gir. I was never a good master to him either I suspect. I may order him to stay here though. He seems to like it._

_The search for parts last night was a miserable failure. Humans have not perfected the art of zero gravity cold fusion apparently. They also don't leave hyperspace transaxle parts lying around either!_

_I'm going to stop now. I'm becoming sarcastic... And I have skool._

_  
-ZIM_


	2. Prolog 2: A Heart as Hard as Gold

**Serum**

Prolog 2:  
A Heart as Hard as Gold

Chapter Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and my Irken symbol tattoo. Everything else is owned by Jhonen Vasquez.

* * *

A young man stood in a sterile environment holding a small vile of orange liquid with a steady hand while injecting a tiny amount of a dark purple substance into it. There was nothing to do now but wait as the timer ticked away the seconds. In two minutes he would know if the last month's worth of work was going to serve his purposes or not.

At 17 Dib liked to think that his life was finally starting to head in the right direction. He'd grown to a height of 5'9'' and was still growing. Now towering over Zim, who hadn't grown at all during his stay on Earth, he'd gained a certain intimidation factor over the alien. Sure his frame was still a bit willowy and his head was still a bit big, but he'd managed to slowly become much more proportionate as the years went by. Dib's wardrobe hadn't really changed much. Any given t-shirt under a long black trench coat, black jeans, and boots was still his staple outfit. His hair kept its unique style, though he was currently going through a phase of coloring the last few inches of the tip of his 'scythe' a different color every month or so. This month found it a dark teal.

But what had changed the most as Dib matured was his mind. Somewhere along the way he had gained a sharp strategist's mind. The days of blindly chasing his enemy were in the past, as were the days of simply trying to stop the alien's plans. The war between them continued to creep slowly toward deadliness as the once brash paranormalist developed a great deal of common sense. The tables had slowly turned over the past few years and now it was Zim that played the defensive while Dib sought to destroy him.

A soft beep sounded but Dib didn't really hear it. His eyes were fixed on the vile clutched in his hand. Gold... A richly colored liquid that looked like melted gold. A grin crept across the teenager's face. It had worked!

The serum, called _Claustrverù -C182 _by the many scientists who'd helped developed it, was an extremely finicky compound to work with. Any slight deviation from the exact chemical mixture ruined it. The final ingredient was often at fault because in order to work _Claustrverù -C182 _required 2 milliliters of blood from the subject to be dosed with it. It had actually been Dib's father that had pinpointed that blood types containing B blood caused a problem in the chemical reaction. The result of failure was a very costly, yet completely useless, mud drown mixture.

Of course Dib had more to overcome than slight differences in blood type to make the serum useful against his foe. Once the compound had been perfected he'd spent the next month in his father's labs making endless modifications in a series of trial and error tests. Irken blood was similar to a human's yet vastly different in small ways, and hard to get. The grin on Dib's face twisted into a smirk as he recalled how easily he'd gotten several voluntary samples of Zim's blood in this very lab so many years ago. He'd been only 11 at the time and they'd been at a 'truce' at the moment... Stupid bologna.

Glancing at the clock caused his smirk to falter for a moment. 3:53.

"Shit." He had skool in 4 hours.

* * *

That'll end the prologs. Have I gotten you interested yet?  
Just what IS Dib working on? There's a bit of a clue hidden here if you can find it!  
Thanks to **andalitebandit-6** and **neoKOS-MOS**. I'm a sucker for lengthier reviews. 


	3. The Unsuspecting Victim, of Darkness

**Serum**

Chapter 1:  
The Unsuspecting Victim, of Darkness in the Valley

Story Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Jhonen Vasquez totally pwns me! If he wanted to come to my apartment **PERSONALLY** and repossess a few of my belongings to atone for the abuse of his creations I'd have no problems with that...

* * *

The walk to skool that morning left the diminutive Irken feeling miserably tired and, not for the first time in recent weeks, wishing he had an Earth car. In addition to the 7 mile distance between his home and the Hi-skool, he'd also spent the better part of an hour before departing the base scrubbing caked on oatmeal off of Gir. 

"You need a nap!" Gir tittered.

Zim paused mid trudge and looked back to his companion from half way up the skool steps. "I do NOT need a nap. If you hadn't decided to make that disgusting oatmeal with a laser and a pressure cooker-"

"Then you need tuna" the little robot interrupted. He held a can of the aforementioned fish toward his master.

"Why did you follow me here Gir?" The only response he received was a vacant grin as Gir continued holding the can outstretched toward him. "I don't need tuna. What I need is..." Sighing, Zim accepted the tuna from the little robot. "What I need is for you to hurry back to the base. Do you remember when I told you that the gnomes stopped working? And how you were going to get to be a ferocious guard dog just like on TV?" At this Gir nodded enthusiastically. "Well if you go and pretend to be a guard dog until I get back we'll get some tacos and find somewhere to watch the Scary Monkey Show."

"TACOS!"

Zim watched as Gir bounded off like a little green dog back in the direction they'd come from before continuing up the steps and entering the skool. He was greeted by a nearly empty hallway and a clock announcing the time to be only 7:04. '_Still nearly half an hour before the majority of the worm babies will start arriving.'_ Zim had learned early on that it was to the advantage of the smallest members of society to be well out of the way when the larger ones all started herding in one place. And being more than 2 feet shorter than the smallest human attending skool he had taken to roaming the hallways only extremely early or exceedingly late to avoid being trampled.

The green skined senior trudged to his locker and made his way toward his English classroom. As usual the room was empty and dark as he entered it but Zim didn't even notice as he sank bonelessly into his seat. Resting his forehead on the cool surface of the desk he quickly lost himself in his thoughts...

It was nearly 30 minutes before the silence of the classroom was disrupted. The soft clicking of heels and a sudden brightness as the light was flipped on, assaulting Zim's unblinking eyes, brought him back to his senses. He mustered enough energy to shift his head and watch as the English teacher pulled open a drawer of her desk and placed a stack of paperwork into it. Still unaware of the Irken's presence the woman continued on to spray a fine mist onto a pair of the moth orchids she had in ornate pots on her desk. It wasn't until she'd seated herself to wait for the students to start trickling in that she noticed an instantly recognizable form slumped in a desk looking at her.

"Early again hon?" Met with a silent nod she went on. "What did you think of yesterday's assigned reading? Tell me what you thought of Poe."

'_Poe was a deranged she-bitch that was too tall for her brain. And the only reason she ever got such a cushy assignment on the Vortian military research station was because thinking up new ways to kill things was all that morbid mind of hers was good at.' _Shaking his head a bit at the random memory Zim gathered together his thoughts of the dead Earth poet.

* * *

As the day progressed the alien found himself struggling. The weak feeling never left him and he was constantly finding himself drifting away from conscious thought. Even his nemesis now noticed his abnormally sluggish behavior, grinning nastily in Zim's direction as often as he could.

But the most unnerving moment of the morning came during the end of calculus when he'd had to sit through several panicked minutes when his translation chip suddenly stopped functioning. '_I shouldn't have tried to keep attending until the end of the week!' _he thought, trying desperately to drown out the sounds that the humans used to communicate with his own thoughts. '_I should be back at the base with Gir! I..I should be trying to get the communications back online! I should be getting the Voot operational!' _A familiar feeling of weariness overtook him at these thoughts and his squeedly spooch churned painfully. '_It's happening too fast. I don't want to die... I don't want to die... I don't want to die_!' Zim continued the mental mantra until the lecture suddenly began making sense again.

* * *

End chapter 1, and the plot thickens. Next chapter it's back to Dib.  
Thanks to my new reviewers, Wrath of Raksheen, nemzit, and toxic-dreamer-2.  
And as for your guess andalitebandit-6... I'm not telling! 


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